A Million Ways to Fall
by LostInTheDreams
Summary: Kaito learns life can take you down many paths, through either your own choices or the choices of other. At the climax, no one can be sure which way the cards will fall. Akako-san helps show just how much is at stake, breaking through the world of 'what ifs' and letting the pieces land where they will.


For now, this is a one-shot. I have left it open for maybe a second part but I have too many fics already as it is. The chances of this one getting another part in at least the next year or two are very slim. I don't think it needs one though. Have fun reading

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**A Million Ways to Fall**

The school's annual checkups had come around and Kaito was standing there in his gym clothes, waiting for his turn, makeup on his skin in places to hide scares that he didn't want to have to explain.

His hair had needed to be cut because of the annoying little detective. It had smelled after his run in with a few dozen or more bombs so now it was closer to his head. He hadn't heard the end of the questions aimed at him for why he'd cut it shorter when it was about to get cooler out. For the most part, he ignored them. Hakuba-kun being back again from overseas should have made it harder but he didn't even seem to care, so that helped keep most of the inquires short.

That guy always had his face in some book or magazine. He really needed to get a life.

Speaking of people who needed to get a life, Akako-san walked right up to him from across the room, where the girls were supposed to be getting their physicals as well, and stood beside him with a grin of way too much self-confidence.

"Hi to you too," he said airily, leaning back and forth on his feet in boredom. "I didn't know you were a boy."

That got rid of the smile but it was back up in seconds. That girl really thought too much of herself. "No. I've already finished with my checkup. I'm in perfect health of course. As is my physical appearance."

"Good to know. I bet all your future boyfriends will be glad to hear it." Kaito smiled to himself and looked over his shoulder at all the other guys who were doing their best to stay in line but craning themselves around one another to see what Akako-san was doing over here.

"I bet he will." She moved towards him more, self-confidence now edge with something close to determination that looked downright scary on her.

"Is that all? I mean, I don't mind if we hang out and all, but the teachers won't like it if you follow me all the way to the front. They'll think you're peeping on us. I'm sure the guys would like it but the adults, not so much."

"I won't need that long." Her tone turned serious, the atmosphere around her cooling as her voice held a new edge to it. "_I wanted to talk to you and you have a terrible habit of slipping away before I can. Something's going to happen, and soon. I can't tell what it's going to be, no one can. Not with you." _Her eyes were on him, focusing in on his own with way too much intensity. "_You're an anomaly by everyone's, even the earth and universe itself's, standards."_

"I'm not sure whether to take that as a compliment or not."

"I'm not sure which one it is either." Akako-san threw her hair over her shoulder in a gesture that seemed practiced. The other guys grew more interested and it didn't affect Kaito in the least. "You're strange. So strange that 'strange' isn't even a definition for it because it has a definition."

"Good to know but I think everyone's special."

"You're not just special. You're one of a kind in every sense. I don't think you understand what that means. You're not bound to so many things that the average person is, and you change _everything_ with any little thing that you do. Imagine that, for most people, you're in a room. There are five or six doors and each one of those leads to a different path. Then, once you go through one, there are five more. That's _normal._ For you," she said as she folded her arms in front of herself and tapped a finger absentmindedly against her arm. "For you it's like you're on a small ledge, and it's moving all the time, and below you is a world of millions of choices that you have to jump into instead of walk. Then once you hit it, you're faced with another million ways things could go. I'm sure that they're weighed evenly, good and bad always need to be balanced, but that doesn't change the fact that you have so much more… potential than most."

"Thanks for that little insight." Kaito nodded his head to her and shrugged a bit. "But that really doesn't change anything, now does it?"

"Don't you understand? It changes _everything_." Akako was getting flustered but Kaito couldn't really see what the big deal was. So she was comparing him to a skydiver in a moving airplane. So what? That was actually really fun. He kind of wanted to jump out of a plane again if he ever got the chance.

Kaito didn't understand, and that was saying something. He understood a lot but the fact that there were more choices with the same percentage of outcomes wasn't any big shocker to him.

"Come over to my house," Akako-san said quietly. "I want to show you something. And don't let your curiosity get away with you. No sneaking in or you might not like the surprises."

"As if I would." Kaito stuck his tongue out. "You make me sound like some sort of peeper. Besides, I've looked around your house already. I don't want to sneak in there again anyway."

A slight smile that framed a dark look was all he got as Akako-san slowly sauntered away. Kaito was left more than a little confused but he didn't mind sneaking a peek inside her house without feeling like there was something in the shadows watching him.

…

Kaito walked up to her mansion of a house later that day with her instead of trying to sneak a peek on his own. This place had driven him away in a way he couldn't describe. As much as he'd wanted to know about her and her voodoo magic, every time he stepped foot on the property it felt like he was being watched. If he turned to look at the eyes he felt on him, they'd be somewhere else. He felt some strange, intense need _not_ to have those eyes on him. It felt like something would happen to him if he didn't turn around each time to face them. Something would come out of those shadows and do something worse than eat him.

Akako-san felt more at home than he did by far, smiling at his unease and leading him into the house.

Kaito could call it a house from the outside. It looked like one. It had a roof and windows and same basic structure.

The inside... the inside was another matter. There was a large open room where they both took off theirs shoes. He followed her down the hallway. Every few dozen feet there was a dark, wooden, door on both sides and pictures of people who looked very much like the witches out of the storybooks on the walls around him.

A few dozen feet down they came to a crossroads… in a _house_. Akako-san kept going so he did too.

They passed all of them, coming to stand in a large room that no longer had any plaster mounted against a wooden frame. This was definitely a room made of stone. It had a circular shape and a large opening at the end that had, what he assumed, was a staircase leading down into a lower floor. There were sparse decorations here. A comfortable looking red chair lay near the side of the room with a small table and a less comfortable looking black chair across from it.

They passed it and Kaito whistled, hearing it echo through the house. "Nice place. Very homey."

"This is the other side of the house. You'd appreciate the front rooms more. That's not what I wanted to show you here though." Akako-san had a few hooked items near the wall by the staircase, taking a red velvet cloak and putting it on, turning the hood for it up and heading down the stairs. "Come on."

Kaito followed her, feeling like he was in some sort of dungeon. It must have been the front of the house then that he'd snuck into. He always wondered why this place didn't have a back door. He knew why now.

The stairs went on for a while before they opened up into another large circular room under the first. This one was far more decorated though. In the center was a platform, also a circle, maybe half a foot off the ground and a few meters in diameter. On it stood a large black cauldron and, on the wall, Kaito even saw some brooms. If Akako-san wasn't the classic fairytale witch, he didn't know who was.

"Come here." There was a platform against the wall and Akako-san grabbed a few bottles, going over and putting them in the cauldron, which looked like it could have contained anything, as it was almost all the way filled and the pot was black. The torches around the room did nothing to help with the light.

"Sure thing as long as you don't plan on boiling me alive or anything. You witches eat children, right? I'm a little too old and thin for you."

"Shut up." Akako-san's eyes lit with fire. It could have been the firelight reflected in them but for a second there Kaito could swear it wasn't. "Don't mock me."

"Right, sorry." He stepped forward, standing next to her as she calmed.

Akako-san took a few deeper breaths before she put her hand over the caldron, holding something he couldn't see it in. When she opened her hand, whatever was in it kind of looked like hair the way it fell. Then there was a flash that had him blinded, making him take a few steps back as a smoke formed on the surface of the water, drawing itself away and floating along the floor until it dispersed enough and disappeared.

"I need a piece of your hair." Akako-san held out her hand. Kaito looked at it, unsure, but more curious than not. He pulled out a strand of his hair and gave it to her. When she dropped it in too he flinched, expecting the same results. Instead the surface turned a strange, more solid looking color of sky blue.

Taking a small cup, she took some of it and gave it to him. "Drink this. By the time you wake an hour or two will have passed so I hope you weren't planning on doing anything this evening."

"As if I'm drinking that." Kaito pointed a finger as the very unappetizing blue sludge. "I'm more afraid it'll kill me trying to get it down but, you know, last time you did try to spell me."

"Yes, and I'll continue to do it in the future. Right now though you have to understand something. I don't want you to die. You should at least trust that. This will help you, I hope."

Kaito sighed, taking the cup. Okay, so he wanted to know what it would do and he trusted Akako-san not to go and try to get him arrested, spelled, or killed in the meantime. He sniffed it, moving it around it bit to see it still did move like water even if it looked thicker.

After a minute of her looking at him while Kaito tried to see through it, he finally gave in and just took a sip. Akako-san was quickly pushing it back at him. "More. Hurry. You don't want it to affect you before you've had enough."

Kaito didn't know about that. Maybe he _did_. This whole thing was worrying him but when her words came out closer to something fearful, he tipped the rest and gave her the cup back.

"Milk, sugar, and food coloring." He tipped his head. "That's some weird taste."

"It's your taste." Akako-san took the cup and set it aside, taking his hand quickly and getting him to the wall. The room was fading before he made it and he wondered if she wasn't planning something nefariously witchy as he passed out in her arms.

…

Kaito woke in a dark room. He wasn't so sure if it was a room since there was no smell, no air current, and it was so quiet that it had his ears buzzing. He got up and sat where he was, his arms draped over his legs as he looked around.

Something small and white crawled across the floor towards him and Kaito felt his heart rate pick up really fast. The little thing kind of looked like a bat, crawling on wings with ears larger than its small head. Bright blue eyes with a yellow rim around them stared up at him as it flashed him a fanged smile, nose strangely more like a cats than a bat's as he saw more of its features. The eyes themselves were slightly too large like the ears were. As he caught a better look, the bat wings seemed to be rimmed with feathers. The creature had feet, but he couldn't tell what they were. They weren't bird feet, he knew that. They didn't click across the ground as it had moved. It also, weirdly enough, had some kind of fluffy looking tail about the length of its body that couldn't be good for flying.

"Hi," the… thing that was kind of a bat/bird/cat/something said to him, near the same size as a small household pet. It had a male voice, a little on the high side.

Kaito eased up a bit, waving to it. It seemed too friendly to be scared of. "Hi. Ah, what in the world are you?"

The creature wrinkled his nose at him. "Shouldn't you ask for a name before insulting me?"

"Okay, what's your name?"

"Kaito." The thing grinned at him again. "In a way. In another way it's not. Since we're going to get nowhere calling each other the same thing, you can call me K."

"Okay, K. So what are you?"

"Jump right back in there, do you? Well, I knew you'd do that." The creature looked over its shoulder, moving back and fixing itself until it was sitting on what had to be its butt in a similar fashion Kaito was, showing off its legs for the first time which, it seemed, were closer to a bats than he thought, though larger to hold up his body weight and more feet shaped than just claws. "I'm you. Kind of."

"You're me, huh? So in reality I'm some strange looking mix of… whatever?"

"No. It's because your mind is only so limited. That makes me only so limited. I'm what you'd call a spirit, only I'm your spirit. Not your true spirit, because you need that to be you. I'm just a piece of it, you can say. A safeguard. If something comes after you, I handle it. If you need advice, I do my best to get it to you in the very limited ways I'm allowed to. Mostly though, I'm that bird that sits on your shoulder and just watches, because that's all I can really do."

"Okay, that's a new one. So I guess my mind or something made you up."

"No. Your spirit did. I can't be more than my whole, and my whole is you. So I'm you. If you were sad or something when you came to see me just now, well, I wouldn't look like this anymore." K flapped his wings a bit. "I'd likely be stained with black and not looking so good. We share that close of a bond. This is what I look like normally though, because you're feeling as close to normal as you can be right now."

"That's actually pretty cool. I didn't know I had a bat thingy inside me." Kaito touched his chest, wondering if this was real or if this was some big hallucination Akako-san was giving him.

K tipped his head, an expression of consideration on it. "I'm not sure about that girl any more than you are. She's a friend though."

Kaito tipped his head in confusion, realizing he was imitating K and quickly sat straighter to hide the fact that he didn't feel comfortable mirroring him. "You know what I'm thinking?"

"Sometimes. You're looking inside yourself right now, which is where I live, so it's a lot easier than it normally is. See, while I'm a part of you, we're not the same. Your thoughts aren't always mine. At the core though, we're the same. It's very hard to explain and you're the type that over-analyzes so I don't want to word it wrong."

Kaito looked and him and couldn't help it. "Can I pick you up?"

K laughed and stood on his feet, which it clearly couldn't walk on very well but made standing no problem. He held out his wings. "Go ahead."

Kaito picked him up, feeling fur that was far too soft even for fur under his fingers. It was like it had a texture that nothing should have. There was a slight coldness there, like touching water. He put him on his lap as he moved a hand on K's head and scratched him as he would a cat.

Spirit of himself or not, he reacted the same way a cat would, closing his eyes a bit and turning into Kaito's fingers as he got behind his ears. The ears themselves had a warmer feel that matched the feel of his own skin.

He ran his hand down his back, feeling the texture of the wings softer than he'd expected, running a finger down the bird feathers at the bottom, watching as K moved around a bit to give him better reach so he could see them as well as touch them.

After a few minutes of this, most of it involving playing with his tail, K flapped his wings and drew himself out of his lap with a gust in the face, coming to rest back on the floor where it had been before.

"This has been fun but we don't have much time. I don't like this, and I don't agree with the witch, but I can only hold it back so long since you came here of your own accord." K opened his wing and gestured off to the side. "We're only here because I wanted to be able to talk with you first. Remember how I said I was a safeguard? Your soul is about to go through a lot. And the only thing I can do to protect us is give you as good a warning as I can so we're not destroyed."

"So whatever Akako-san gave me is attacking my soul. Gee, and here I thought she was being nice for once."

"She's trying her best. She didn't think things through all the way though." K looked behind himself. Kaito tried to as well. There was a sound there, like roaring water. He turned back to him. "There's something you don't know about souls. It's something that she can barely comprehend herself. You two were talking about possibilities. Well, your soul holds all of them inside itself. It's what makes us who we are, what decisions we are more inclined to take, how our soul is shaped." K grinned and gestured to himself with his wingtips. "Like me. I'm the product of your decisions and everything that can and can not be."

"Cannot be? Why (How) does what can not be affect anything?" Kaito had been following for the most part but that bit there confused him.

"Decisions. Even if you change yours, there were other possibilities, other decisions you would have been inclined to take. Your soul is still made up of those. They still would have been yours but someone else in the world changed what you ended up doing. Your soul knows the real you, what would have happened without outside interference, so it still keeps those imprints. For the great majority, you're a good person. It's why I'm not a big scary monster about to bite off your head off, even if a guardian of someone's soul _could_ do something like that."

"That really doesn't make me feel better about myself." Kaito patted the little guy on the head and watched him shake it around after. "You're puny."

K wrinkled his nose again. "I said you were normal right now. I'm not so tiny when you're angry. I have many different forms. Did you want me to be some big huge thing when you're just being you?"

His inner self quickly turned his head again. The water sound was getting louder. "We don't have much time. What she gave you is supposed to let you look at your soul. It's normally something that's life changing. When you see all the things you can and would do, it changes you. It'll change your soul itself too. It's a dangerous thing to do because of that. A person could change so easily by looking at the expanse of their actions." K looked back at him, fear clear in his eyes. Kaito even saw his wings tremble a little. "I can't protect you from it, but please, try and stay you. I like who we are."

Then the room was gone. There was nothing but blinding white light that burned, physically hurting him. Kaito was sure he was falling, but he didn't know to where. He couldn't see, could only hear the rushing water.

Then there were images. Snake was in some of them. They passed before him, into his heart somehow. He _felt_ them. _Days_ went on, _weeks,_ in the span of seconds as just one instance ran inside him. He couldn't say so much that he was seeing them. That would involve something close to relating it to watching television. It wasn't. He was the actor, only he knew what he was doing, _wanted_ to do it. Emotions ran through him on fast-forward so much that they felt like they'd tear him apart.

Every second, every excruciating moment, passed by so fast and left him to where he knew he wasn't breathing, or at least had no sense of it. The… 'futures to come' took up everything. It felt like he was being torn apart.

And all that time, he could _feel_, _know_ what would happen. Know what he would do. No, it was more than that. He was _doing_ it now. All of it. It would rewind, show him different circumstances, but only after running through one time line.

He felt sick. Or at least he thought he did. It was so hard to tell with his emotional drive on max.

He watched Aoko die… that was hard. He watched her die dozens and dozens of ways. He watched her dad die. He watched Jii-chan and his mom die. He watched his friends from school die. He watched his friends from outside of school die. He watched police, detectives, children, parents, the elderly… all die. All different ways. All through choices he had made. Good guys, bad guys… they all died.

He watched himself get married. He watched himself lose her. He watched himself never have her. He saw kids. He saw a girl, a boy. He saw a different woman. He saw yearning, loss, happiness.

Mostly though, he saw himself die- over and over and over… each way worse than the last.

…

Akako waited. It had been over the two hours. She herself had only been under an hour and ten minutes. She'd never heard of someone who had been under longer than this. She bent over Kuroba-kun, feeling his light breath, his steady heart rate. She frowned. After another hour, she grew worried.

Four hours later she was upstairs, getting her servant to bring Kuroba-kun up. She had him laid down in the first bedroom, wondering what to do with him. It was going on nine and this should have been done long before now. She could always spell his mother to be complacent but they did have school in the morning.

She ended up going about things the hard way to find a phone number for his house with the help of a few supernatural friends. The call was simple and she smiled at the ease there was convincing his mother. It made her wonder how many girls Kuroba-kun has asked to stay over with.

She went to bed and went to school in the morning, knowing she had to do something when she came home and he was still out.

Akako spent the afternoon into the night on every potion she could think of to wake him. None of them worked.

In the end, she gave a second call to his mother, telling her that she didn't know what was wrong and that he hadn't woken that morning. She felt worse when she hung up, scared, and went in to look at Kuroba-kun.

She wanted him, but not trapped in his own mind. Even with his talents, he shouldn't have been out this long.

It was worse when his mother ended up bringing him to the hospital later for tests. Akako came to visit before visiting hours were over, finding Nakamori-chan there, resting beside him with his mother next to him as they spoke in quiet conversations.

The tension in the air was thick and Akako kept herself to the back of the room, contemplating what she could do to fix this. She couldn't enter his soul herself, it was forbidden and, as far as she knew, impossible. _No one_ had been trapped like this before. Maybe she could make some calls, figure out what was going on. For now, the doctors were saying he was in a coma. Medically speaking, that seemed to be the truth. She didn't know how much deeper the problems actually were.

…

Kaito's head hurt and the light was bright as he opened his eyes. He found himself really thirsty and noticed he had a bunch of things attached to his arm. He moaned a little, trying to move and finding it hard. Someone must have turned gravity up while he wasn't watching.

Then Aoko was all in his face and grabbing him, calling his name. Kaito had no idea what was going on but with things attached to who knew where, he didn't want to move too much, doing his best to pat her on the shoulder. "_Hi_." His voice came out in a whisper, making him blink a few times as he tried to focus on the room.

"You baka. What happened?" She was crying and Kaito moved his hand to her hair, brushing it down. He had to think for a while on what happened himself. It was so hard to remember every little thing, but his brain was trying. He didn't want to forget everything. He had so many questions, most of them for himself though.

"I don't know. Stress?" he defended weakly with a smile. Aoko looked up and he could have sworn she was going to hit him before she just kept holding him.

"You wouldn't wake up… for five days."

Kaito swallowed. So much for a few hours. No wonder he was in the hospital (he could smell the chemicals in the air and the over-laundered sheets across him) and she was so upset. "I'm sorry. I really am. I don't know what happened but I feel fine, except for the part where you're crushing me."

That got him a light laugh and it made him smile more, freeing himself of her so he could sit up a bit. His arms felt like they were still half asleep and it looked like he was on an IV. He took the heart rate monitor off his finger, hearing the shrill noise as the machine told him either put it back on or the whole hospital was going to come in. Instead he used it to pull the machine to him and turned it off with a sigh.

"Kaito, you really shouldn't be messing with medical equipment."

Kaito turned to the voice of his mom, standing at the foot of the bed and offering him a cup. "Here. I bet you're thirsty."

"Thanks." Kaito took it and drank slowly. The water was too cold to drink any other way. He moved one foot so that it was close to his body and allowed him to be more in control of his movements.

His mom was looking at him for some kind of answer but Kaito had none to give her. There were so many things in his head right now that it didn't really surprise him that it took him up until now to process them all. Pandora, for one. He knew the possibilities of where it was. He could get it, easy.

But screw fate and screw his soul and possibilities and what not. He had different plans.

Kaito spent the next few days getting caught up with life and school. He had to. Life came first over all his considerations. Only once he had all his homework done, copied all Aoko's notes, made sure he was still fine jumping off rooftops, he was ready.

Kaito had seen all the possibilities and, while he could follow one and have life turn out the way he wanted, it wasn't worth it. It was, in some ways, but it wasn't in others. He wasn't going to let himself know what was going to happen. That would make life good, but it wouldn't be a happy one.

So he did what he'd never considered doing before and went to Aoko's. He'd set it up so that she was at the mall with Keiko-chan and a few others right now and her dad was off today.

Nakamori-keibu answered the door, frowning at him and Kaito greeted him in a few quick steps and words

"Nakamori-keibu." Kaito turned to him with a grin as he slipped his shoes off. "I'm Kaitou Kid, and I have a story to tell you. How about tea?"

…

Sure, maybe there were a million ways he could fail, a million ways those he loved could die, could fail. But there were also a million ways he could climb.

And now he had just made a million more.


End file.
